Eliot Fisk, renowned classical guitarist, will display his extraordinary technique and artistic vision in concert today in Spaulding Auditorium at 8 p.m.
The program includes not only a range of classical and contemporary music, but works transcribed by Fisk and others written specifically for him by well-known composers.
Although the performance commences with a group of three classical Italian pieces by Agustin Barrios, Fisk extends the traditional repertoire, encompassing a collection of American pieces by George Rochberg and Robert Beaser.
Fisk has also arranged a series of works by early composers Grandos and Albeniz, an impressive artistic and technical feat. His performance on campus is one of a series that includes engagements in Taiwan, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston and a tour of Italy.
Winner of the Classical Guitar Competition in Gargnano, Italy and voted Best Classical Guitarist of 1995 by Annual Guitar Player Magazine, Fisk comes to Dartmouth as one of the decade's most important musicians in his field.
After earning an M.M.A. degree from Yale University and founding the university's guitar department, Fisk was coached privately by Andre Sergovia, the world's premiere classical guitarist. Recently, Sergovia's widow granted exclusive performance rights of her late husband's work to Fisk, many of which Fisk has recorded and released.
"Mr. Fisk's playing is bright, streamlined and modern," declared New York Times columnist Allan Kozinn (October, 1996), but he also described his style as a "polar opposite" to his teacher and mentor, Sergovia.
Sergovia himself described his protege as "one of the most brilliant, intelligent and gifted young artists of our time ... in all the general field of instrumentalists."
Fisk attempts to generate the same type of energy in his concerts as pop artists. He said, "Sometimes they get into something that is fundamental and essential. I love to watch the audiences at rock concerts. I'd rather have my audiences look like that than the way most classical audiences look."
Although in this performance will be primarily a solo recital, Fisk has collaborated with many well-known musicians from long-time-partner, flutist Paula Robinson, to jazz guitarist Joe Pass and the Shanghai Quartet.
Fisk teaches as the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria and soon will be added to the faculty of the New England Conservatory of Music.
